FAQ: All you need to try out the Office 2010 Beta

As anticipated, Microsoft yesterday launched the first, and likely only, public beta of Office 2010.

Because this is the last available-to-all milestone for the new suite, Microsoft's geared up to get the beta into the hands of a very large group. "Instead of tens of thousands who tried the Technical Preview, now we're talking about millions and million of people," Takeshi Numoto, the corporate vice president for Office, said in an interview Wednesday.

On your end, the best thing about Office 2010 Beta is that you can use it free-of-charge for nearly a year: The preview won't expire until Oct. 31, 2010.

But what does our expert say ? "Anyone interested in Office should get a copy of this beta," wrote Preston Gralla in his first-take review. "It was solid and performed well without crashing once. I experienced none of the slowness that you sometimes do with betas."

You can find out whether Gralla's right by downloading the beta and giving Office 2010 a spin yourself. But where is it, how do you install it, what do you need to run it, and how do you get rid of it if it's a can of worms?

Questions, questions, questions. Here are our answers.

When can I download the beta? That's easy: Now. Microsoft rolled out the beta during a keynote at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) mid-day Wednesday.

Where do I get it? The public download is available from the Microsoft site, on this page .

Office 2010, by the way, is the first Microsoft suite to be offered in both 32- and 64-bit versions. Choose the version that fits your operating system. You can check to see whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit edition of Windows 7 by clicking the Start button, then clicking Control Panel and System Maintenance. Click System.

Is Microsoft limiting who can download the beta, like it did with the Technical Preview, or the number of people who can have it? No, there is no numerical cap on the number of downloads for Office 2010.

It's unclear whether Microsoft will set a time limit on Office 2010 Beta, as it did for Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) last summer. "I'm not sure if we have a specific plan to shut off availability at some point," said Numoto. Microsoft does plan, however, on making sure "millions and millions" of users are able to download and try the preview, Numoto added.

What edition of Office 2010 is the beta? At the Nov. 18 debut, the version offered everyone was Office Professional Plus 2010, the everything- and -the-kitchen-sink collection.

That's odd, even ironic, since Professional Plus is the feature-laden edition that will be available only to enterprises and organizations that purchase licenses in volume when the final ships next year. Professional Plus includes Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, SharePoint Workspace -- formerly called Groove -- and Communicator.

Earlier on the Office 2010 Beta site, Microsoft had listed three different versions that would be made available to users: Professional Plus, and the to-be-sold-at-retail Office Home and Business, and Office Professional.

So, what happened to the other versions? Why aren't they part of the beta? Microsoft's Numoto said the company still plans to offer versions other than Professional, but wouldn't say when. "We'll make additional offerings after today," he said Wednesday, getting only as specific as "fairly shortly."

If Microsoft comes through on that promise, it will end up delivering three of the five editions of Office during the beta. A trio will be sold at retail -- the low-end Office Home and Student, as well as Office Home and Business and Office Professional -- while two Office Standard and Office Professional Plus, will be sold only to volume licensing customers.

How's the Office 2010 download process going? Good -- so far.

A few users yesterday posted messages on the beta's support forum saying that they were unable to reach the download page, but it may have been a local issue, since most of those who complained said they were in Germany. We didn't have any trouble accessing the site, retrieving a product key or grabbing the beta.

But the question was legitimate. Last month, a major snafu in the downloading of student discount copies of Windows 7 led hundreds to gripe that they were unable to install the new OS. And last January, when Microsoft launched the beta of Windows 7, a debacle forced Microsoft to restart the roll-out because of server overloads.

What do I need in order to install the beta? Microsoft has set the minimum requirements for the beta as a 500MHz or faster processor; 256MB or more of memory; 3GB of free hard drive space; and Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), Windows Vista SP1, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008 SP2, or Windows 7.

Microsoft made it clear that you shouldn't need to upgrade your hardware to run Office 2010, assuming you're already running its predecessor. "You don't need to replace hardware that is capable of running Office 2007; it will support Office 2010," the company said in its own FAQ for the beta.

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